


risk getting betrayed

by whateverliesunsaid



Series: pictured: love in the complex world of corporative relations [3]
Category: Succession (TV 2018)
Genre: Character Study, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Idiots in Love, its just shiv thinking about what love is when it's not a blade cutting into her
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-25
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:47:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27717005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whateverliesunsaid/pseuds/whateverliesunsaid
Summary: They told her many times that choosing him was a cop out, an easy way to avoid hurt. He would never hurt you, they'd say— and it was never a compliment to her wonderful choice, it was a statement of his weakness. He would never break your heart, they say and it cuts at their honor, somehow, like a hammer digging into their marble, sculpting them into a different picture with their words.
Relationships: Siobhan "Shiv" Roy/Tom Wambsgans
Series: pictured: love in the complex world of corporative relations [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2112606
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	risk getting betrayed

They told her many times that choosing him was a cop out, an easy way to avoid hurt. _He would never hurt you_ , they'd say— and it was never a compliment to her wonderful choice, it was a statement of his weakness. _He would never break your heart_ , they say and it cuts at their honor, somehow, like a hammer digging into their marble, sculpting them into a different picture with their words.

Of course, Shiv knows these things. She prides herself in being 10 steps ahead, in making plans upon plans, in being the one with the right answer in every room. She made the right decision precisely because of that. She's spontaneous, she's witty, she knows what to say and when to say it— but she knows that when it comes down to it, he's the one who knows not to lash out. 

He knows the weight of holding his tongue even when what he ends up saying turns out mangled by the pressure of his teeth sinking into them. Where Shiv is all untrustworthy honesty, Tom is always sincere to a fault.

Sometimes their words burn her cheeks hot when he does the wrong thing, speaks at the wrong time, makes a fuss of himself and she sees the judgement barely contained behind her brothers' eyes and her father sharp tongue.

Pinkie. Daddy's girl. Shiv.

In all the names they call her, not one of them holds half as much affection as the myriad he conjures only for her, because prayer in his world is not a mantra to be repeated but a cycle to begin and end. _I will never break your heart_ , he promises with his eyes by looking at her sweetly after she's drawn back from a kiss and looked away. 

She can't stand it, but that's not his fault. She's surprised that her snake never dies by the poison it bites into its own tail. That his love never sours because of her, but is made anew instead. It's unendurable even if it's all surviving, this love he maintains like a candle under the rain, her flame burning into his palm. It hurts to be kept alive.

*

He calls her sweetheart for the first time the day he moves into her loft and she pretends not to notice it, but it comes as a surprise. It stops her dead in her tracks, reaching for the mug of coffee besides her laptop, the light reflecting off the marbles in the countertop so it makes him look so bright and full of joy, turning to her with a carton of oat milk in his hand to ask if she had any allergies he should know about.

She doesn't, she communicates with a grimace and a shaking of her head.

  
She also doesn't admit that his question almost made her cry.

  
*

They don't understand a very important thing about her, it seems. Shiv wants to learn what it feels like not to hurt all the time. What does it feel like to talk without being shut off, by being nurtured rather than polished.

Being treated like a human being, not an asset. 

Which is what he does, even if she treats him like one. Even if she doesn't know how not to burn with her words, gorgonic in her ability to stun him silent, to break his heart.

Shiv knows that she's worse at this game than he is, but he lets her win everyday hoping that at some point she will give him some competition and make some winning moves of her own volition.

They don't know the first thing about him either.

  
*

She pads down to the living room of their penthouse during a blizzard, trying to find the thermostat to turn the heating up some more before they freeze to death in their sleep and spends forever taking laps around the room trying to figure where it is to no luck until he comes down, bleary eyed and sleepy in his big striped pajama set.

"Shiv, where are you?" he calls into the dark and she sighs, flicking the switch to the living room where she stands small, barely dressed and extremely frustrated.

"I'm trying to find the stupid thermostat—"

He stops mid staircase with a look in his eyes that is nothing short of curious, "Oh."

"What?!" she looks behind herself, making sure she's not standing directly before it like a fool.

He takes the last few steps in a rush and take her in his arms, big and warm, kissing her name into her forehead a few times until he leans back to look at her again, as if she looked— Oh.

"You look so beautiful in my uni's hoodie, you shouldn't ever wear anything else. I'm telling you. You look bewitching. Positively gorgeous, honeybadger."

If she's blushing, pressing her teeth into her lower lip in her own version of a smile, she will never admit to it.

"Also... The thermostat is in the kitchen." he almost sounds apologetic but she's not fooled by it, his grin too sweet and too stupid not to show the humour he finds in seeing her swallowed whole by his stupid hoodie, in their living room, helpless without him.

She shoves him out of the way a little bit, her cheeks burning something heavy in her face so she turns her back on him and finds the thermostat quite easily, turning the heat up to find him leaning on the edge of the room, watching her with sleep and love in his eyes, so far beyond help it would be painful to watch if his devotion weren't oh so sweet an offering to have laid at her feet.

"Whoever makes it to the bed first wins?" she offers, trying to diffuse that look in his eyes, to make the fact that she can never know what she looks like to him a little more bearable and when his eyebrows shoot up, playful and awake, she takes it as her cue to start running, laughing while he has to turn off the lights before following.

His voice calling out into the dark, "no fair!"

Her heart beating a drum that's all happiness over being chased in the dark, even if he finds her before she makes it, crossing his arms over her waist and throwing their bodies together on the bed, laughing their way into a tie.

  
It would always be a tie with him.

  
*

For all the things they said both to her and behind their back, she knew he had a longer list of lovely things to say stored just for their pleasure somewhere in the depths of his mind.

"They can keep talking for as long as they want," she thought someday with his feet knocking into hers a tune she couldn't quite hear, a sharing he couldn't be possibly be conscious of but gave anyway, with his eyes following the words in the little paperback he brought to their vacation, bent halfways so he could read and hold her hand at the same time. "we'll just keep on going."


End file.
